The Monday After: Thanksgiving viewed through the years

Monday

Nov 19, 2018 at 6:47 AM

Holiday of gratefulness evolved from humble beginning.

A proclamation by Ohio Gov. Thomas Worthington punctuated the Thanksgiving season 200 years ago.

"Whereas, it has pleased Almighty God," began the proclamation, published in The Ohio Repository in the newspaper's Nov. 27, 1818 edition, "to continue to us the most extraordinary privileges possessed by any people on earth ..."

The governor listed the blessings that he believed Ohioans had received.

"We enjoy liberty to the fullest extent, both civil and religious; peace on all our borders, with a time of general health; we have been blessed with a most favorable and pleasant season, and the earth has produced her fruits abundantly," the governor told his presumably grateful constituents.

"Under the belief that the good people of Ohio are deeply impressed with a sense of gratitude and the obligations we are under to that Almighty Being, who has thus extended his choicest blessings to our favored land, and that it will be in accordance with their wishes. I have considered it my duty to set apart Thursday the 10th day of next month (December) as a day of publick (sic) Thanksgiving and Prayer."

Thanksgiving in December? That sure could cut the shopping season short.

Still, there was little indication 200 years ago that any post-Thanksgiving purchases were being made to give as gifts for Christmas. And, from what was published on the pages of the weekly newspaper, it didn't appear that much out of the ordinary was planned as a celebration of Thanksgiving.

Glimpse into past

It was left for an article written by Russell McCauley and published in the Repository 50 years ago, on Nov. 28, 1968, to offer more insight into the manner in which holiday was celebrated early in Canton's history. McCauley recalled Thanksgiving tradition of a year not long before Gov. Worthington offered his official words of thanks.

"Thanksgiving day in 1816 in Canton, then still in its infancy, may have been more work for the women and less play for the men," wrote McCauley. "But its customs really haven't changed that much in the 152 years to today.

"Accounts of what may be the earliest recorded local Turkey Day project a rustic picture of wild turkeys slowly being roasted as candles lit in the pre-dawn darkness of log cabins."

Townswomen had arisen long before the town's men, noted the newspaper writer, who with his words put wives and mothers to work making "pies, stuffing, bread and other foodstuffs that would load Thanksgiving tables."

"Relatives from nearby towns began arriving by horseback and wagon shortly after church services, swelling the town's population of about 500," McCauley wrote. "The head of the house presided over the laden dinner table, offering prayers of thanks for the bountiful harvest and blessings his family had received.

"Family members and guests then began consuming the meal that in some cases had taken women three days to prepare," McCauley continued. "Heaps of turkey, bear or venison, mountains of potatoes, vegetables, home-made bread, fresh butter, cranberries, pigeon pie, baked apples and gallons of coffee and cider made up the main course. For dessert there were mince or pumpkin pies, brandied peaches and more coffee."

A little history

McCauley included in his article a little history of the holiday, which is said to have begun in America 1621 with a feast celebrating the pilgrims' first corn harvest.

"The history of Thanksgiving in early Stark County reveals that the holiday usually was observed the last Thursday in November," he wrote. "The holiday, however, before and after statehood in 1803, could have been in any month of the year. The choice of when to observe Thanksgiving usually was left to citizens of individual communities."

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln asked states to officially celebrate Thanksgiving on the same Thursday in November. In doing so, Lincoln was ending a decades-old debate argued by noted magazine editor Sarah Joseph Hale, who had in 1827 began a campaign to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday.

"Lincoln finally heeded her request in 1863, at the height of the Civil War," records an online posting on the holiday at history.com, "in a proclamation entreating all Americans to ask God to 'commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife' and to 'heal the wounds of the nation.' He scheduled Thanksgiving for the final Thursday in November."

Despite Lincoln's urging, the national holiday didn't immediately take on a large amount of significance, it appears.

One of the few references to Thanksgiving in the Repository five years later was a small item on Nov. 26, 1868, that reported on a church gathering to give thanks.

"The Presbyterian and Lutheran Churches, united for the observance of Thanksgiving day will meet in the Lutheran Church, this day, at half past 10 o'clock," the newspaper said.

A century ago

Comics, political cartoon, advertisements and editorials all marked the holiday 50 years later, on the first Thanksgiving following the armistice ending World War I.

"Now just after the deliverance of the world from the most titanic and destructive war ever recorded in history, comes this day when all our hearts should go out in thanks for the victorious peace which was gained for us by the sacrifice of our brave boys," said an ad placed by Citizens Building & Loan Co.

Other advertisements hawked goods sold at clearance prices, instead of pre-Christmas sales. But, one Thanksgiving tradition now firmly entrenched -- the playing of football games on the holiday -- was beginning to gain a foothold as an American customs. With the lack of a formal professional football league in 1918, however, the teams that competed in holiday games were collegiate.

"In Ohio the Mt. Union game with Wooster will be the big attraction in this section, though the annual battle between Case and Western Reserve at Cleveland is expected to be the tightest struggle of the two," the Repository reported. "In the southern part of the Buckeye state, Miami and Cincinnati are occupying the spotlight."

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